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Substitution For Experience
Great comment from Kylark on my post about tv making you braindead:
The real danger of TV - of any entertainment - is that for it to work, part of you have to believe it’s real.
It then becomes a substitute for lived experience.
What’s more valuable - lived experience, or simulated experience? Which kind of memories are more valuable - those of lived experience, or those of simulated experience?
I’m not saying TV isn’t valuable; there’s a ton of good stuff on anymore. But you have to find a balance.
I once had a dream that I was sitting on a couch with my boyfriend watching TV, and an old woman came tumbling out of the screen. Upon waking, I connected that old woman to myself - you could get old in front of the screen and not even realize it.
Personally, I’m not sure that either lived or simulated experience is intrinsically more valuable. What arguments would you use to argue for or against that position? One item that might be interesting to pull in comes from the original argument about tv mind control which started this discussion:
The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain, if it looks real, it is real. Thus, though we know on a conscious level it is “only a film,” on a conscious level we do not–the heart beats faster, for instance, while we watch a suspenseful scene.
Kylark says above that for tv to “work” part of us has to believe it’s real - and it then becomes a substitute for actual experience. The author of that article says that we essentially have no choice in the matter because part of our mind automatically believes it to be real. So my question here would be, if we believe it to be real, if some primitive part of our brain connected to our nervous system believes it to be real, then doesn’t that make it real?
There seem to be two factors off the bat which would arguably prohibit a television program from being real (I’m sure there are more). One is that conscious parts of our brain “knows” (and by that I mean believes - it doesn’t necessarily have proof) it’s not real. Two, the problems and/or situations presented in the program don’t persist in our lives once we turn the tv show off.
Or do they? Have you ever had a movie or show which influenced you deeply and stuck with you for years to come? How can you quantify or differentiate the impact those media events have had on your as opposed to actual lived experience? Have you ever remembered something that happened to you or that you heard from a “friend” only to later realize that this same thing was actually in a movie? It’s definitely happened to me. Many many times. Is it bad?
Taking it on another tangent: if our argument against watching tv uses neurology, as above, to tell us that we aren’t able to distinguish reality from fantasy, then we’d have to use that argument against all other media as well: books, music, stories told be friends, you name it. We’d have to apply that argument to language itself, which is not real, but which we mistake for being so. Very likely we’d have to use it against thought itself. But of course when you start arguing against thought with thought, then you slide down that slippery slope of infinite regress.
Speaking of infinite regress, here’s another one. Say you entered into an immersive virtual reality environment for the purposes of entertainment - one which was totally real to the senses, but which you knew you could leave at any time and return to your normal life safely. Now, suppose within that VR world, you entered into an in-world virtual reality simulation (virtual-virtual reality) of your actual real life which was completely accurate down to the smallest detail. Would this “VVR” simulation of your life be a real or simulated experience? What if you could never leave it but if you could enter into successive internal virtual-virtual-virtual simulations of your life which matched it in every detail? Fun, right?
Now that our minds are totally zapped on imagining the unimaginable, let’s get back to the matter at hand: tv. I don’t want to pick on Kylark here, but there is one other thing that got my mind shooting off in different directions in what she said. In one breath, she seems to imply that tv isn’t as good as real life, because we don’t actually experence. In the next, she illustrates the dangers by way of a dream - which we could argue is another form of “simulated” experience. What makes one bad (tv) but another type of simulated experience (dreams) okay? Is it because one is natural and one is not? I could buy that, but then we could branch off into a separate argument about just what it means to really be natural.
The other thrust of the pro-dream anti-tv argument, as I envision it would have something to do with dreams arising from a person’s own mind, and thus being somehow sacrosanct. A quick glance at Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious, however, could very likely shoot that to pieces. There is a large amount of anecdotal evidence and theory which suggests that certain dream structures, patterns and formulas arise not from our own minds, but from the race mind, the memory of the species, and perhaps even of the earth and the cosmos itself - if we stretch our species back towards it’s source into infinity.
And that leaves us where? Floating in outer space somewhere, with dreams and meteorites whizzing by. And that’s no place we want to stay too long probably. So let’s come back home. The underlying argument seems to point to things that happen to you versus things that happen to somebody else. In a very basic sense, things that happen to us are *better* or at least more important than things that happen to somebody else (whether on tv or not) - simply because we can never experience somebody else’s experience. We’re always left wondering and projecting. The only solution seems to be - like for so many things - just to keep going. To experience our lives fully, and to share with others as fully as possible our own experiences, and for them to do likewise, whether on tv, by writing weird rambling blog posts or scrawling profanity on bathroom walls. Long live experience and communication and all the misunderstandings that lay between!
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April 11th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Well, here’s the thing… I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with TV, in and of itself… but there IS something wrong with watching TV to excess… just like drinking/ smoking/ eating/ insert ‘vice’ of choice/ to excess might all be problematic.
To be sure: life is to be lived.
TV is, like it or not, is part of this modern life. You can, of course, choose to not watch TV, and that is a perfectly valid choice. However, your experience of televised programming can enrich your life… provoke discussion… stimulate the imagination… but if it becomes a substitute for -as opposed to supplement to - living your own life… then, my friend, ya got yerself a problem!
If you watch TV with bovine abandon… its not the TVs fault. Again, let us not discount our personal will and ability to choose to watch - or not - watch TV. I think perhaps that we give too much credit to the medium and forget to consider the message. And is the message of the televised program tht we should view critically… what is being said… why… and who is saying it…
After all, we often see & hear exactly what we want to see & hear… that is just as true watching TV as it is ’simply’ living life…
April 11th, 2006 at 10:39 am
On the topic of: Is there “real” experience gained watching TV vs. actually participating - I think not. While your “heart beats faster watching suspense” - you don’t really have any skin in the game. You are passively watching, not participating. Does watching a hockey game - thru which you probably gain real experience as a watcher of hockey games - provide you any means by which to actually experience what it is like to play professional hockey? Not really. It may serve as a basic tutorial on how to play the game, but you need to get out there and do it to gain anything truly useful. Even “real” things that are participated in via TV, for example, anyone who saw the breaking news of OJ Simpson in the white Bronco on the freeway. To be sure it was fascinating and engaging watching, and even suspensful - but it doesn’t let you experience “really” what it is like to be in a high speed getaway chase running from the law…I don’t know, as I type this I am starting to see the other side of the argument - ie. where else would I have gained the experience of seeing a live event of high speed chase in real time? But in essence I don’t think that you can really gain the total experience, only a glimpse of something you mightn’t have seen otherwise.
If you see someone being kind to another on TV, can you rest at that as though you’ve done the deed yourself? Then on to business as usual. No. BUT - you might take away something that may lead you to be kinder in your real world. And to completely change my tune - I guess I have to agree that this is “some” kind of experience gained. This gets more into the area of what message is being conveyed / received rather than, what real experience is gained.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:34 am
No, of course it doesnt. But it does give you the experience of *watching* a hockey game - and that’s still a real experience - even if it is mediated by time and distance. Sure it’s different from sitting in the stands at the rink, but it’s still a real experience and can be valuable, enjoyable, etc.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:43 am
I’m assuming that most people have watched a lot of TV in their lifetime - especially as children. Much of our collective memories of childhood seem to rotate around common things such as old TV shows and characters. The Simpsons and Family Guy are often so appealing because they contain many subtle or explicit references to contemporary or past popular cultures. All this adds to the common experiences that we share as a cultural group or at least a demographic based on age. My nostalgic memories of childhood are unique, but certain things such as Thundercats or Garbage Pail Kids are common to many childhood memories.
I do not watch nearly as much TV as I used to and because of my work schedule, I have no time to catch any of the weeknight serial programs. Besides watching reruns of my old faves, I’m stuck watching daytime or late-night TV. Especially with the speciality channels, like a Home and Garden channel or the Food network - I watch but I am not experiencing it. I often zone out and look at the top of the TV or off to the side….. TV does not dictate or inform my experiences, but serves as background noise to wanderings of my own mind. I choose shows or channels that are moderately interesting, but do not slavishly watch them til their conclusion. In this case, the medium takes precendent over the message - it doesn’t matter what you watch.
There is no overall argument here. Been lurking for a while and I wanted to contribute something.
April 11th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Did any one see the movie Existenze by David Cronenberg?
“It’s worse than that. I’m not sure… I’m not sure here, where we are, is real at all. This feels like a game to me. And you, you’re beginning to feel a bit like a game character.
“We’re both stumbling around together in this unformed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistent, always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don’t understand.”
April 11th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
i grew up in a culture with little t.v.. britain in the sixties had two t.v. stations……..so we did a lot more “real” stuff, and i still do. cycling, soccer, walking, talking to other people…….
belief = reality. be careful what you believe.
April 11th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
“What makes one bad (tv) but another type of simulated experience (dreams) okay?”
Public opinion. I never hear people say “TV is good” except for Homer Simpson, and it’s meant to be satirical when he espouses it. I have learned immensely from television, but that’s because I was encouraged to learn as a youngster. A TV show might’ve made me want to go out and try something that I never would have been exposed to if I hadn’t seen it on TV.
Now, if it were a Jackass stunt I was aping, then the rap would be “TV is rotting your brain and making you stupid”. But what if I was trying to find out more about a historical figure referenced in a patch of sitcom dialogue? Does that make me a moron, because the source for my scholarly excursion was TV? To the elitists, yes it would make me a moron… because the source was TV and not a book or a documentary or a periodical.
If so, then everyone should turn off their computers right now, because despite all the learning you’re doing online, there’s just too many ads and too much smut on the Web to make a difference to your mind.
That’s unsound logic. For every bad show like The OC there’s an entire channel like PBS with lots of great programming, all of which is still better than 99% of what’s on free TV, content-wise.
April 11th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
I love this argument!
Nietzsche had things to say about books and media in general:
Tv is a man made quick ingest of information. This would be great if it wasn’t being corrupted by corp interest. Just look at what they have done to the evening news, which just shows the level that they have manipulated the content since day one.
To me it seems that the tv interest is trying to get an echo into, what I’ll call ultra reality that a book or idea or even a person can achieve. I think that these corporate attempts work, but are very short lived and constant infusions of money/life energy. While true ultra realities seem to, as Nietzsche said, have a life of their own. If the corp propaganda machine would stop spending their dollars, how soon till their brand names die out in the ultra reality…not long. But The Bible, I Ching, Koran, and other books and people would still be maintained by their own value to humanity.
April 12th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
the bible is backed up by substantially more dollars(and blood) than any other man made media that i can think of, and without that support it would disappear too.
April 12th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
I think javier is implying that The Bible wasn’t started as a corporate media. It was a chronicle of beliefs, and it could very well have disappeared during the Dark Ages.
Thanks to industry (the Gutenberg press, for example) The Bible survives. God may be many things (creator, murderer, mystery) but one thing he is not is a corporation or a broadcast network looking for ad revenue.
Don’t mix up the Pat Roberstons of this modern world with the various men who anthologized the books of the Bible… although I will admit that the apostle Paul bears a striking resemblance to the zealots we deal with in this day and age.